The previous article was about growing tomatoes in containers. But suppose you have the space to grow tomatoes in soil, and want to figure out what all you need to do to get a healthy output. There is plenty of information that would help you in this process; after all, you need to know about which types of tomatoes, what are the pests and blights that could affect your plants, what is the best type of soil, what is the amount of watering and sunlight that should be given to the plants, and so on. Further, if you get tips and points that you should avoid doing, those will help you a lot. Here is the link to an article that should help you in this regard:

# Good first-time growers’ varieties include Better Boy, Creole, Big Boy, Early Girl, Brandywine, Celebrity, Lemon Boy, or just about any cherry or grape tomato variety.
# Plant several varieties rather than all of one type– this ensures a steady harvest. As a rule of thumb, it’s good to have two plants for each member of the family who will eat tomatoes. If you plan on canning or making salsa, use up to four plants per person.
# Prepare the garden bed by adding lots of compost (5 to 8 pounds per square foot/25 to 40 kilograms per square meter) to the soil. Turn compost into the top 3 inches (6 to 8 cm). Tomatoes demand a growing medium rich in organic matter. If you don’t make your own compost, use store-bought compost or composted manure available in the 40-pound bags. Compost or Manure is usually less than US$5 per 40-pound bag.

The referred article provides help from the process of selecting the tomato plant / seed, and then goes onto providing an estimate of how many plants you should have. You learn about the tomato spacing, watering, providing fertilizer, support for the growing plant, when to pick the tomato, warnings and things to avoid, etc.

Trying to grow some juicy tomatoes ? Can’t resist the temptation to have some bright red juicy tomatoes growing on a vine and then to cut them in your kitchen, savoring the pleasure ? And of course, you really don’t have the outdoor space to grow tomatoes properly in soil ? Well, fear not. There are plenty of resources dedicated to helping you grow tomatoes even though you do not have soil on the ground and would like to grow them in containers. Here is the link to an article that provides many more details on what you should do to get such a garden:

* Plant tomatoes such as cherry or Roma varieties that have smaller fruit, which do best with the upside down hanging tomato growing method.
* If you don’t like the look of a five gallon bucket, you can also purchase planters specifically made for hanging tomatoes.
* Be sure to pick a solid place and use a good strong hook or other means from which to hang your tomato plants; each planter will weigh between 35 and 40 pounds.
* Plant your hanging tomato plants in spring (between late April and early June depending on how far north you are located) so that you can enjoy fresh tomatoes all through the growing season.

The article takes you through details on how you can set up your container for growing the tomatoes, get the required soil (with the additives that you would need for this purpose), and so on. And of course, you can go and search for more details on how to grow tomatoes in containers (also refer to previous articles on this site).

So you went ahead and decided to grow tomatoes, having been allured by the thought of growing some beautiful tomatoes that you can admire while they are growing, and then enjoy in your kitchen - there is a different sort of feeling that you get when growing your own food, especially something as attractive as a tomato.
And then disaster; the tomato is struck by pests, or by some sort of blight, or does not grow at all. And then you need to go looking for help, for somebody to tell you what can be the problem. So, here is a link to a resource that should be able to help you grow your tomatoes better.
It is a short guide, but one that tells you about the basics of growing tomatoes, as well as why tomatoes can get sick. You also get to know about organic treatments for some of these problems. In the end, you get a listing of disease resistant tomato varieties, and also a listing of the favorite varieties of the tomato. Here’s the link to the article:

If you’re new to tomato gardening, you should note that the key to avoiding problems with your tomatoes is to grow them under the healthiest conditions possible. This involves proper watering, sunlight, air circulation, and good quality soil with plenty of organic material mixed in. There are also a variety of organic fertilizers out there to give your tomatoes an extra advantage.
Tomatoes can suffer attacks by bugs, fungi, viruses, or bacteria. Tomatoes also suffer stress due to environmental conditions such as excessive cold, heat, sunlight or moisture. Some problems are associated with deficiencies in certain nutrients. Tomatoes can pick up diseases through contaminated soil, the air, through rain or irrigation water that carry fungal spores, or through insects that carry a disease.

Growing vegetables in 5 gallon buckets is a good option for people who have constraints or do not have space for a regular kitchen garden. A whole lot of items can be grown in 5 gallon containers (or other sized containers) similar to growing in a kitchen garden easily. So, for example, the following are a sample of the vegetables that can be grown in containers:
- Vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers will readily adapt to growing in containers.

What is the process you should use:
- Stab a dozen holes in the bottom of your five-gallon bucket with a nail or screwdriver, then pour in a couple of inches of mulch in the bottom; mulch will help keep the water drained properly and prevent rot.
- Fill up the rest of the bucket with potting soil, leaving a two- to four-inch space at the top.
- Since the roots of the plants will be confined, be sure to water the plants as often as necessary to keep the soil from drying out.
- Get yourself a sturdy stake and embed it into the soil at a good enough depth that it will be able to hold up the weight of a fruit-laden plant. If necessary, set up small wire frames to provide support.
- They also sell “tomato cages,” which replace the stake with a metal mesh that fits in the top of the bucket and rises up into a cone, given the tomato plant more room to vine.
- Sprinkle a layer of mulch over the top of the exposed soil.
- If you’re growing indoors, select vegetables better suited for modest sunlight.
- Keep an eye on them for diseases and other such problems, including pests (although if you have pests inside your house, then you have bigger problems)
- If growing tomatos, choose determinate-type tomato plants rather than indeterminate ones. Determinate tomatoes will reach 3 to 5 feet high, where indeterminates will continue putting on new growth all summer.

While growing plants, watering these plants is a very necessary process. But you need to make sure that you remember to water them regularly. Failing to do so means that your plants could suffer and not grow like you would like them to grow. In addition, different seasons and different plants require different watering conditions.
So, you must be thinking “Why could we not have a system where plants could get water as and when required; why should I have to know the peculiar conditions for watering depending on the plant and the weather?”. There is actually a solution to this problem in the form of something called “Self Watering Container” (SWC).
Self Watering Containers obviously cannot generate water by themselves; however, they solve the problem of ensuring water when required by setting up a bottom chamber that is a water reservoir and above which is the potting mix along with the roots of the plants. The roots pick up water by osmosis, ensuring that water is drawn when required; leading to an improvement in the growing abilities of most plants. Read this article that explains this in more details (link):

You can make SWCs out of many different types of containers, including kitty litter buckets and 5-gallon buckets, which are, of course, smaller than the 18-gallon storage tubs but will serve nicely for a pepper plant, one of the smaller varieties of eggplant, and other plants.
# If you are growing vegetables in containers anyway, then the SWCs make life much easier: you only have to water every few days rather than every day (or even multiple times per day in the case of large plants in traditional containers).
# An even-better reason for using SWCs rather than traditional containers is that the vegetables grow very much better in them. I’d say that - per square foot of container surface - SWCs give you at least twice the yield of traditional containers, and probably even more.

Read the whole article to understand the advantage (as well as disadvantages) in more detail.

Seems like a strange thing to do, right ? But here is this great article about hanging 5 gallon buckets and letting tomatoes grow from them, instead of growing tomatoes with the roots going into the ground. There are many advantages of this approach, and getting 5 gallon containers is a fairly easy task.
The articles goes through the preparation of the containers for the task of growing stuff in them, including making sure that the containers / 5 gallon buckets are totally clean. Next, holes are made in them, and then the holes are covered so that the soil will not fall out.
The article then moves onto preparation of the bucket with the soil mix, and finally planting a tomato seedling. When the plant starts growing, the bucket is then hung up from a place that can take the weight of the container and the soil.
Read more details, including some photographs at this link.

Jim Appleby from Iowa has discovered several benefits to hanging his tomatoes in buckets. First, the air can circulate better so the plants have almost no disease problems. Second, the fruit doesn’t rot as quickly as that on the ground. And finally, some critters that eat tomatoes have trouble getting to the ripening fruit.

Here’s another post on the same topic (link)